I am an undergraduate student of comparative education. I have been searching for basic structural information on the Cuban education sytem. For example, is the school week still 6 days? Do teachers begin their teacher education process in secondary school, or at the higher education level?

While I have found Soviet era information to answer these questions, I am having trouble finding current information, especially on teacher education. I have scoured the journals through JSTOR, ebsco, LANIC and the like. I am waiting on a report, written by the Cuban Ministry of Education, submitted to UNESCO, and translated into English that I requested through Inter Library Loan.

I have Lavinia Gasperini’s 2000 Country Studies, Worldbank report in my possession. This report has been very helpful, but contains no information on the certification process of Cuban teachers. The only information that I have been able to find on this is contained in a 1985 report by Erwin Epstein, found in the World Education Encyclopedia.

If anyone has ideas, personal experience, or is aware of other means of gathering information that I have overlooked, I would very much appreciate your comments!